The Occupation Comes to DC

This Saturday, October 8, protesters swarmed Freedom Plaza to commemorate the 10th anniversary of the War in Afghanistan. Billing themselves as a sister occupation to “Occupy DC,” these protesters set up tents and proclaimed their intent to stay despite only having a permit to use the Plaza until Sunday. Not satisfied with the media coverage, FrumForum sent this author to the protests. What I found was certainly surprising.

Upon entering Freedom Plaza in the late afternoon, I at first doubted I’d come to the right place due to the presence of a large truck emblazoned with the Coca Cola label at what was allegedly an anti-corporate protest. However, as I soon learned, the truck was actually part of a completely separate exhibition that was taking place on the Plaza at precisely the same time as these protests. The protesters didn’t seem to mind the presence of representatives of their nemeses so close, though. A few even crossed the barricades to partake of some corporate goods before returning.

But then, several protesters were confused about the purpose of this protest. One younger protester who had previously been audibly yelling at her mother that “No buildings in the history of forever have ever collapsed due to fire damage,” told this reporter that “This isn’t Occupy DC. Occupy DC is at McPherson Square. This is ‘Human Needs, Not Corporate Greed.’ And like, it’s against the war.” However, other protesters didn’t seem so sure, as several signs spotted read “End the Fed” and “Corporations are Soylent Green!” One man, holding a sign that read “Arm Yourself Against Fascist Pig! Violence Now” had some choice words for passers by:

“Stand up for your country! Stop being a bunch of sheep! Stop being a bunch of cowardly sheep! Stand up for your country! Abolish the Fed! Better get those guns ready! We’re gonna have our Spring in America soon! We’re gonna have our Spring! Yeah! America ain’t invulnerable to a revolution! America ain’t invulnerable to a revolution! It can happen here! Get caught on the wrong side! Get caught on the wrong side, get caught against the people, and you’ll see what happens! Stand up for your country against these coward-ass politicians! They don’t represent me! Obama don’t represent me, Bush don’t represent me, none of them represent me! This is a protest, this ain’t no tourist walk! This is a protest! This is a revolution taking place!”

These incitements to violence were not universal. The Socialist Workers Party, who declined to be recorded, sported several signs opposing the war. Some protesters were so strongly anti-violent that they even marched on the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum and “shut it down” because they felt that some of the exhibits tacitly supported war. Signs could be spotted in a large group of protesters who were marching in circles that read simply, “We love you.” The effect was somewhat spoiled, however, by other signs that read “F**k you, disgusting greedy unconscious mosquitos! You are a virus = We will find the cure!”

Even Ron Paul supporters showed up to the protest – 2 of them, to be precise. One of them told FrumForum that she had voted “straight Democrat” up until 2008, but now thought Obama was a “lying son of a b***h” and wanted to End the Fed and bring the troops home.

However, perhaps the most eloquent statements came from a small group of protesters who had set up signs protesting what they saw as unfair discrimination by the DC police force against skateboarders. “Everyone has a unique story, but we all have similar views. We all want equality, we’re not little people, we are people. I don’t see these people as out-of-towners. I see ‘em as my neighbors, because they’re fighting for the same thing that I’m fighting for, which is the right to fight,” said one of these brave souls.

Pitiable slaves to bad manners more like it. Think what they like but don’t share it.

Though I’m always amazed at men’s inability to grasp the idea that physical beauty is somehow at odds with actual emotion. Yet another reason to keep such thoughts to yourself. It is very hard to for women to regard men as equals when insist on spouting such inanities.

Most of the coverage I have seen has been negative – which I don’t really buy. Yes there are always crazy and incoherent people at these sorts of things, but I wish they wouldn’t get all the media focus.

Yup, yap at the oil companies while everything in their lives is made from petroleum based products.

The oil companies pull in nothing compared to the government taxes on oil and gas, and the government burns it on their welfare for votes program, to include illegal aliens, while the oil industry spends what they pull in on research and development.

One can consume gasoline, and still be appalled at a political system where oil corporations have the power to manipulate our environmental policies, our foreign policies, our tax policies, through the power of the cash they feed into the political system.

In the aggregate, these protests aren’t against the existence of Corporations, or even Wall Street (I say in the aggregate, because there are certainly some whose thinking is incredibly muddled). Rather, it’s against the dominion that Corporations have our politics, having successfully transformed government into a cash cow.

Exactly. The OWS movement isn’t against the existence of corporations or their products. It’s about corporate ownership and control over our government. Not difficult to comprehend, unless you would rather choose the path of willful ignorance and post funny pictures.

Exactly the point!!! It should have bought us a representative government, but didn’t. Now you are coming around.

The OWS movement clearly recognizes the corruptive influence of Wall Street infects the Democratic party also. That’s why they are rallying. They want real change in Washington, including Obama. What’s wrong with that?

One would literally have to be born yesterday on the back of a turnip truck to deny Wall Street has WAY too much power over our government.

Where else, exactly, can I buy a video camera made by someone not in a huge corporation like Sony? Can I get razor blades or hair dye produced by the small cosmetics company down the street? Who else makes sharpies?

Everyone in that photo has goods from large corporations because that’s pretty much the only source people can buy anything from anymore. If you can’t scale like Walmart – and of course get your labor for pennies on the dollar overseas – you can’t compete.

Except powerful billion-dollar corporations buy political influence which stacks the deck in their favor, removing consumer protections/choice. What choice do we have in, say, telecommunications, other than between one mega corporation and another?

Read a little bit more about Walmart. Walmart controls their suppliers because of their size. Small firms can’t do that. So they are can’t price competitively so they die. So I, who rarely enter into Walmart, can’t buy from someone small.

I’m not convinced by the argument that corporations do own the government. Average Americans are among the richest people in the world with most having access to one of the best healthcare systems in the world and protected by the most stringent environmental regulations and consumer safeguards.

The system is under duress at present for sure, but a sour economy doesn’t help corporations (of which ordinary Americans are the major owners of) either.

I was just about to post about this too, “I am already thoroughly fed up with the dishonest claim…” but I see you beat me to it. Very few people are actually opposed to capitalism and there are not enough of them to matter. But people without a good argument are forced to use a bad one, even if it’s based on a lie.

Well, the fact that most items are from big corporations, is part of the feeling that one can’t escape them.

But even so, you can be perfectly comfortable with capitalism but not at all desirous of corporations to run the country, or for their interests to be the only thing our country places any importance to. Just because you participate in capitalism, doesn’t mean you think the only persons who count are corporate ones. Too bad the writer doesn’t get that.

It’s not really. The Coke and cell phone references are Straw Men. See, it was the financial industry that destroyed the economy, not Coca Cola. That’s what makes this article so idiotic. Well, that and the idea that Holt is a “journalist”.

So the fact that corporations own and control every aspect of our lives means that we must either surrender ourselves to them utterly and be their thralls, or else go die alone in the wilderness?

Wake up. White-knighting for some plutocrat in a mansion on the other side of the country won’t make him any more likely to have mercy on you when he decides to line his pockets with another round of layoffs. You need to figure out which side is actually fighting for your rights, and which side simply wants to use you and discard you like so many other “resources”.

I am all in favor of a return to Glass-Steagall style regulations as well as some kind of fundamental reform of campaign finance to undo the damage of Citizens United. However these protests are not merely anti-corporatist, they are anti-corporation or even anti-capitalist. Something positive may yet emerge from them, at the moment though it seems unlikely that they will end up serving anything beyond generic milquetoast liberal boilerplate. I would love to be proven wrong!

” These protests are not merely anti-corporatist, they are anti-corporation or even anti-capitalist. Something positive may yet emerge from them, at the moment though it seems unlikely that they will end up serving anything beyond generic milquetoast liberal boilerplate. I would love to be proven wrong!”

Yes you have heard good arguments. You just never made the effort to listen. The power of corporations to buy influence is corrupting. It is impossible for individuals, or even smaller non-profits to compete. While corporations may employ many people, their interests are by definition to the few, for no greater social good than profit, and not even limited to citizens, or American interests.

This club like power silences rather than promotes speech.

It also makes it even more likely that our elected officials will cease to pay attention to the electorate as they chase after the ability to buy thought.

Seriously, Paul_gs, where have you been since the Supremes decided that corporations are interchangeable with individual citizens? Consider this, citizens are mortal but corporations need never die. Corporations are run by rich executives who report to rich executives who get appointed to boards of directors by rich people. Rich people tend to be and vote Republican. Citizens United was enacted by five Republican versus 4 Democratic Justices. Citizens United states that corporations have the same rights of free speech as individual citizens and the most important right is the right to spend money to influence elections even though corporations have access to a lot more money than individuals. What about these facts are you unable to understand?

This is off topic, but could somebody please explain how you can add italics, quotes, or bold characters? At one point there were buttons that appeared, but it has been a long time since I have seen them. I get the sense that people are using text modifiers to begin and end italics, quotes, and bold characters. Anybody willing to share their secrets?

“At this point, protest is the message: income inequality is grinding down that middle class, increasing the ranks of the poor, and threatening to create a permanent underclass of able, willing but jobless people. On one level, the protesters, most of them young, are giving voice to a generation of lost opportunity.
…

It is not the job of the protesters to draft legislation. That’s the job of the nation’s leaders, and if they had been doing it all along there might not be a need for these marches and rallies. Because they have not, the public airing of grievances is a legitimate and important end in itself. It is also the first line of defense against a return to the Wall Street ways that plunged the nation into an economic crisis from which it has yet to emerge.”

The girl with the “Fuck You” sign sums up a lot of peoples feelings toward the Wall street people who gambled, lost and were bailed out by the taxpayer only to go back to the same ways indifferent to the consequences.

And it sums up the feelings of those who are against the activist supreme court who legislated in the citizens united case. Bringing forward a case that was not even before them.

It also sums up the feelings of the people who hate the results of that terrible judgment, the increasing use of corporate money to influence policy and demean the political process itself.

The girl with the “Fuck You” sign sums up a lot of peoples feelings toward the Wall street people who gambled, lost and were bailed out by the taxpayer only to go back to the same ways indifferent to the consequences.

Not only indifferent – but the Wall Streeters acted as if they had no responsibility in the economic meltdown that resulted from their overleveraging and overspeculation … and went back to battling any attempt to add any regulations that would put a brake on the herd mentality they showed in the 2000′s that drove us over the cliff. What’s more, any attempt to tax the billions they earned from that speculation in the 00′s in order to repair any of the damage that ensued became “wealth redistribution” and “confiscation”.

For an awful lot of the Wall Streeters – not all, but far too many – “Fuck You” is a much nicer sentiment than what crowds could be driven to start chanting were they being incited to express their Second Amendment rights.

Not only indifferent – but the Wall Streeters acted as if they had no responsibility in the economic meltdown

Indeed. Check this out from a longtime WS trader who is actually sympathetic to OWS (emphasis mine):

And then there are the folks who work on Wall Street … “I kind of think they are misguided in their protesting, but I understand it,” said Alan Valdes, who has traded on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange for 35 years. He says he sympathizes with the protesters. “I definitely see their point,” Valdes said. “The banks aren’t loaning, that’s a fact, they’re just sitting on this cash. Corporate America is just sitting on TRILLIONS of dollars. So you can see their animosity. They’re not getting hired. Most of them are young kids out of college, not finding jobs and not getting hired right now, so I think it’s a problem. But again, I think they’re misguided in blaming Wall Street. We had very little to do with it.”

This is the liberal version of the Tea Party with all the inconsistencies and issues that go along with that. I share their concern about the unchecked power of multinational corporations. That doesn’t mean that I have to go live on a commune and grow and make my own everything. That’s just not a practical solution. To suggest otherwise is simply ridiculous.

I wonder if these two movements, the Tea Party and Occupy Whatever are the beginnings of the replacement parties for the current Republicans and Democrats.

The Tea Party has insisted that it is not a Republican group. It’s seemed to be more an offshoot of Fox News at times, but they claim to be retroactively opposed to the Bush Presidency. It’s sometimes hard to pin down exactly what they stand for, because they present a leaderless face. Anyone who tries to claim a leadership position can be disowned in a heartbeat, for almost any vague infraction (see Perry, Cain. Christie seems too smart to risk it). If pressed to list their positions, I’d say “small government, low taxes, and ‘I want my country back’–nostalgia for something that may not have ever existed.”

The Occupiers (my name, for convenience) are so recent that pinning them down is even harder, but they’re similarly leaderless. Also, coming from the left means coming from a lot more directions. I’d say “Anti-corporate, anti-wealth-gap, ‘it’s our country too’ progressives.”

I’m only brainstorming, but I think the next election is going to be interesting (in the Chinese proverb sense of the word), as the ids of the left and the right compete for control, and for the hearts and minds of the American middle.

I would add that both the TP and OWS share an overarching discontent with the political status quo, the inability of our elected leaders to achieve anything of substance. In so many ways the current administration represents a potential interregnum as we choose up sides and redefine the distinctions between Left and Right.

I don’t know why people have missed the underlying message of the OWS:

the system has been good to 1% of the population, it has been miserable to the other 99%.

The protest isn’t a movement, it isn’t a political party, it isn’t against corporations as if corporations don’t have a right to exist or that the protesters can’t use products made by corporations, blah, blah, blah…

Where it will lead, who knows? But like the tea-party had a right to voice their frustrations, whether you agree or not with their message, the protestors of the OWS have the same right of freedom of expression to express their dissastifaction with the system.

These Occupy Wall Street protests will never go anywhere. An effective anti-Wall Street movement needs to narrowly focus on banking issues that touch everybody across the entire political spectrum.

The movement should focus on things like globalization, bailouts, corporate welfare, privatizing profits while socializing costs, fractional reserve banking, predatory lending and debt usury, abusive practices like the BOA debit card fees, underwater mortgages and the big banks foisting their mortgage losses on the middle class, and the control of the American money supply by the private, for-profit banking cartel otherwise known as the Federal Reserve Banking System.

Instead, the Occupy Wall Street movement is diluting their appeal by linking their core points about Wall Street to a bunch of peripheral left-wing causes like animal rights and the union and moveon.org agendas.

This is the problem with spontaneous so-called “leaderless” resistance. Spontaneous outrage can only take the outraged masses so far.

Once groups with money, organization and professional experience get involved in the mass protest movement, it is inevitable that those groups are going to take take over the spontaneous movement and co-opt their agenda.

We saw this with the Tea Party movement as well. It started as a disorganized, leaderless, spontaneous mass movement that blew up in response to the Barack Obama presidency. It was never solely an “astro-turf” movement, as some progressives absurdly and dishonestly maintained.

But the Tea Party movement eventually evolved into a de facto astroturf movement once the Dick Armey faction became involved and grew in influence (Dick Armey’s Tea Party Express is a proxy for the Koch brothers).

Because the Dick Armey faction had money, organization and well-paid professional help at their disposal, they were able to steer the entire Tea Party movement away from making perfectly valid complaints about taxes and government and toward an agenda that benefits plutocrats like the Koch brothers.

Unions, moveon.org and other sundry left-wing hatchet orgs are now in the process of co-opting the Occupy Wall Street movement.

The net effect will be to ensure that anyone who is not already a leftist Democrat will never take a close look at Occupy Wall Street’s main grievances. This will include most middle class independents and virtually all of middle class red state America. The net effect will also be to ensure Occupy Wall Street is steered toward serving the union agenda and the agendas of the other professional groups that get involved.

Instead, the Occupy Wall Street movement is diluting their appeal by linking their core points about Wall Street to a bunch of peripheral left-wing causes like animal rights and the union and moveon.org agendas.

In fairness, I think its the other way around. These movements desperate to get any kind of media attention like the Tea Party does are jumping on board a bandwagon that didn’t start with anything to do with them.

@tommybones: “I’m so sick and tired of the constant implications that one drinking a coke (or using a cell phone, God forbid) has forfeited his or her right to protest Wall Street criminality.”

Perhaps the Tea Party’s opponents won’t be so quick in the future to make dumb points like “they hate government but love their Medicare.”

The fact is, it is damn near impossible to live life without using mass produced products and services delivered by large corporations and an American and international economic system that is dominated by plutocrats, Wall Street and banking interests

It’s not as if anyone has an alternative, is there?

Likewise, it’s not as if anyone has an alternative to Medicare whether the person is part of the Tea Party movement or not.

Paying into Medicare is compulsory right?

It’s not as if anyone in the Tea Party has the ability to opt out of Medicare or anything else the government mandates any more than the Occupy Wall Street protestors can realistically opt out of using their Visas and cell phones.

Anyone can opt out of using Medicare. Afterall, we have the best healthcare system in the world right here in America, based on free-market principles. If you are a 65-year old cancer survivor in need of a heart bypass, there is no reason why you can’t take out a private insurance policy and get it taken care of. Right?

Or is it your understanding that becasue you have paid 1.45% of your wages for Medicare, you then have to use it, exclusively? Isn’t that like saying that because you also pay into Social Security, you can’t also have your own plan of private savings for retirement?

It’s theoretically possible to not use it after being forced to pay for it. It’s not realistically possible, however, because of numerous factors outside the control of everyone who uses Medicare. Likewise, it’s theoretically but not realistically possible to quit using Visas, corporate products and petroleum products. When there is no realistic alternative, it does not make much sense to criticize a group for not choosing an alternative. And no, no one can opt out of paying for Medicare.

I have been making the point for a while now that Barack Obama is a faux progressive when it comes to opposing Wall Street.

The smart Lefties, Independents and Righties realize this as well.

And, please, for all you Barack Obama ideologues out there who care more about protecting Obama than actually scrutinizing what he has done to reign in Wall Street, don’t serve us up another helping of your thin gruel “Obama is not as bad the GOP.”

OK; so Obama is not as bad as the GOP. Granted, so what; what an endorsement; is not being as bad as the GOP the standard now? Is that what’s going to help the middle class?

And please, don’t serve up any of that “Obama signed Dodd-Frank” gruel either.

Given the scale of the damage Wall Street has inflicted on the American middle class, the ongoing impoverishment of the American middle class, and the wealth transfers from the middle class to the top 1%, Dodd-Frank was a pathetic response.

The Democrats had power from ’09 to ’11 that they are probably not going to see again for a long time.

It really says something about the ability and willingness of the Democrats to stand up to Wall Street given that Dodd-Frank was the most they were willing to do at the height of their power — and at the height of the economic crisis.

Unlike previous Democratic presidents, including John F. Kennedy and Bill Clinton, President Barack Obama’s base primarily lies not with the working and middle classes, who would have demanded effective job action, but with the rising power of the post-industrial castes, who have largely continued to flourish even through the current economic maelstrom.

From the beginning, Obama has been nurtured and supported by an array of influential leaders in finance, technology and real estate who supported his rise. In the run-up to his nomination, he attracted more money from Wall Street than Hillary Clinton, New York’s senator. Later, he pummeled the Republican nominee, Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), by a wide margin among financiers.

To be sure, Obama’s ground game relied on organized labor, particularly public-sector unions, African-Americans, Latinos and progressive activists. But these groups have not emerged stronger from his three years in office.

Instead, the major winners of the Obama years have been the big nonprofits, venture capitalists and, most obviously, the financial aristocracy. These have all benefited from the Ben Bernanke-Timothy Geithner — previously the Bernanke-Henry Paulson — policy of cheap money and near zero-interest rates, which have depressed the savings of the middle classes but served as a major boon to Wall Street. This has benefited mostly the wealthiest 1 percent, which owns some 40 percent of equities and 60 percent of financial securities.

These have all benefited from the Ben Bernanke-Timothy Geithner — previously the Bernanke-Henry Paulson — policy of cheap money and near zero-interest rates, which have depressed the savings of the middle classes but served as a major boon to Wall Street.

Seriously?

The problem the middle class has faced isn’t that interest rates were too low to allow their meager savings to grow at a 4% annual compounded rate instead of a 0.5% annual compounded rate.

It’s that the middle class by and large didn’t HAVE any savings when Obama took office, but rather on heaping pile of debt that had to be repaid and rolled over.

Higher interest rates would have killed any private sector job growth, while driving many many more Americans out of their homes. It would have been incredibly stupid.

Yes, the wealthy have found ways to profit. The wealthy pretty much have the leverage to play ANY system that’s set up to their maximum advantage – the only reason some took a bath during 2008-2009 was because their own greed got them too far out on a limb.

I can assure you had interest rates been allowed to drift upwards the same people would have profited massively under that scenario, just with much more hurt and long-term damage to the middle class.

The only way to tilt the playing field back from the uber-wealthy is to raise the tax levels on the money they can skim from the system via the advantages in the marketplace that their uber-wealth provides them.

And while Obama’s attempts to raise those taxes have been fairly moderate (given the comparative economics of the Clinton years and the Bush years, I think it just takes a rabid ideologue or an idiot to argue that the top bracket should be 35% instead of 39%), and while he’s had to deal even those moderate increases away in order to pass critical legislation to keep millions of Americans from losing their homes, I still give him more than enough credit in this sphere to be committed to supporting his 2012 election over anyone else out there in the competition today.

is not being as bad as the GOP the standard now? Is that what’s going to help the middle class?

Considering what Rs did during the Shrub years and what they’ve done the past two years, most any other party or candidate is better than a Republican. You could probably find more reasonable people in the Taliban.

Even Ron Paul supporters showed up to the protest – 2 of them, to be precise.

“Precise”? I see no indication that Holt interviewed even the majority of protesters, much less every one of them. It’s this kind of lazy rhetorical construction that lays bare the pretense of legit journalism.

Anyhoo, here’s my take:

While the impetuses (impeti?) fueling their respective protests are notably dissimilar, it’s impossible not to see tactical parallels between OWS and the Tea Party movement’s own genesis.

In terms of influence on the body politic, OWS can only hope to prove as successful as the TPM. What remains to be seen is whether or not OWS can morph itself into a more widely palatable form than did the TPM whose net unfavorabilities continue to rise.

To my mind, however, the single most telling dissimilarity between these two movements has to be their demographics. The old TP folks might win some battles– clearly, they already have. But from an historical perspective, it’s the youngsters that win the war. Time is, after all, on their side.

Well, if the TP is the parallel to draw here, I’m trying to remember the timeline. I think it took about 8-10 months (is that right?) for the TP to fully develop a head of steam. If the OWS movement also fits in that timeframe, I’m thinking there will be a lot of buildup going into the election next year. Then I’m wondering how the ex-wall street executive candidate will fare in such an environment?

BTW, I saw 8-10 demonstrators in front of a bank here in the midwest, complete with V masks. It’s a major college town so I’m not jumping to conclusions, but has anyone seen anything similar?

I’m only speaking to existing parallels that we can readily identify. Given the inherent disparities between the movements, I’m not sure that projecting a timeline is instructive.

But yeah, I suspect it’s safe to speculate that OWS could have a measurable impact on 2012 elections. If that turns out to be true, unless something unpredictably weird happens between now and then it will not benefit any current GOP candidate.

I feel the same way about inbred ancient teabaggers with their pointy hats and their faux Patriotism. I think combined they might have an IQ over 100. Watch out paul_gs, history is gonna pass you by so try to make the most of this final teabagger whine before they shuffle off the mortal coil.

[blockquote]
Immediately after the incident began hitting the newswires Howley published a “Breaking News” story with The American Spectator online in which he reveals that he had consciously infiltrated the group on Friday with the intent to discredit the movement. He states that “as far as anyone knew I was part of this cause — a cause that I had infiltrated the day before in order to mock and undermine in the pages of The American Spectator — and I wasn’t giving up before I had my story.”

It is highly likely that the events that occurred would not have taken the turn they did if it were not for Howley’s admitted adventure in an effort to discredit the Occupy movement. So before the public, the media, and officials turn their attention negatively towards the protests and the protesters there needs to be a critical eye turned on the role of the American Spectator and the role played in these events by its editorial staff. If arrests were made at this incident, and even if none were, the admissions of Howley published brazenly in the pages of his Conservative magazine and bragged about on his Facebook page should lead to an official investigation into his role and that of his employer in the events in Washington D.C. today and should be seen as at least part of the causal nexus that led to the inappropriate use of force that along with Howley negatively affected many who were innocent of any crime other than being at the wrong place at the wrong time.

Ironically Howley concludes the story of his adventure mocking the lack of courage of the protesters, who he admitted did not seek – as he did – to confront the authorities, by praising the courage of the guards who twice pepper-sprayed him.

“As I scrambled away from the scene of my crime, a police officer outside the museum gates pointed at my eyes, puffed out of his chest, and shouted: “Yeah, that’s right. That’s right.” He was proud that I had been pepper-sprayed, and, oddly, so was I. I deserved to get a face full of high-grade pepper, and the guards who sprayed me acted with more courage than I saw from any of the protesters. If you’re looking for something to commend these days in America, start with those guards.”

The admissions of Patrick Howley, published in The American Spectator for all to see, require those across the country, both the public and its officials, to take a closer and more critical look at today’s event’s in the Nation’s capital. Who was really to blame for the chaos and disruption of a Federal Museum? Who should be held responsible for those who were harmed in the melee that took place after Howley admits he defied the orders of the legal authorities and stormed into the building? And how should the story of today’s events unfold in the Nation’s media over the next several days?http://my.firedoglake.com/cgrapski/2011/10/09/american-standard-editor-admits-to-being-agent-provacateur-at-d-c-museum/

It seems right now the OWS protests are not interesting in presenting solutions, they’re presenting the problems. They want people across the country and those with influence to recognize the problems extant in the US. If the protests last which is still an unknown given the coming winter, I’m sure they’ll begin to lay out what policies they’d like to see enacted. It’s also possible (probable) that with their advanced technological expertise and use of social media that the movement could grow exponentially and become very organized.

While the protesters refuse to ally with either party or become co-opted by an group or union, they can make use of the resources/knowledge gathered by these other organizations to become more organized.

You know in all our this protest isn’t quite right. It’s foolish, its naive, it doesn’t have good port a potties riffs, we are not being wise.

We are being like the ass in Orwell’s Animal Farm. The ass always sees what is going to happen but never actually takes action or takes a side. These people are there. They are making their voices heard, letting those with the power to make change realize they exist.

As a lapsed flack I can tell you that sometimes the entire point of a a media event, is to get the brand name out there.

“The OWS movement clearly recognizes the corruptive influence of Wall Street infects the Democratic party also. That’s why they are rallying. They want real change in Washington, including Obama. What’s wrong with that?”

Nothing is wrong with that – America needs the change – Obama OUT.

And he needs to be replaced with someone who will bring the corporate tax rate to 10% in order to help keep American companies from not growing and taking it abroad, as well as close the kind of loopholes Obama and the Dems gave to GE.

Also, we need to stop tax dollars from subsidizing the growing of businesses (ex.: Solyndra) and the research and development of businesses. Let them pay their own way – sink or swim. Politicians should not pick and chose which companies get tax dollars and which ones don’t – it’s corruption – kickback for their elections. Leave the taxpayer’s money alone in this respect.

And put Frank and Dodd in jail where they belong for wrecking the banking and housing industry.

“On Saint Patrick’s Day, we wear green and celebrate the culture of Ireland. I’ll be down at the pub Saturday, but I’ll be toasting Ireland’s success at attracting greenbacks — all that investment flowing into the Emerald Isle and the resulting prosperity. …

Now if only we could chase the leprechauns out of this country and cut our corporate tax rate, we’d be enjoying Irish-level growth rates by next St. Paddy’s Day.”

[blockquote]The following photograph taken by opednews.com shows a confrontation in the lobby of the National Air and Space Museum between two individuals and an officer shortly before video shows officers with the Museum’s security forces rush outside indiscriminately pepper-spraying numerous individuals.

It appears that one of the two in the confrontation with the security officer is Patrick Howley, Assistant Editor of The American Spectator.

Immediately after the incident began hitting the newswires Howley published a “Breaking News” story with The American Spectator online in which he reveals that he had consciously infiltrated the group on Friday with the intent to discredit the movement. He states that “as far as anyone knew I was part of this cause — a cause that I had infiltrated the day before in order to mock and undermine in the pages of The American Spectator — and I wasn’t giving up before I had my story.”

According to Howley’s story he joined the group in its march toward the Air and Space Museum but the protesters on the march were unwilling to be confrontational. He states “they lack the nerve to confront authority. From estimates within the protest, only ten people were pepper-sprayed, and as far as I could tell I was the only one who got inside.”

He claims that upon arrival at the Museum the group of approximately one hundred protesters split into two factions with the smaller of the two “rushing the doors,” the majority “staying behind.” Howley then admits in his piece that he snuck past the guard at the first entrance in order to “infiltrate” the building and then confronted another guard. He then “sprinted toward the door” at which time he was first hit with pepper-spray.

As he describes his next actions “I forced myself into the doors and sprinted blindly across the floor of the Air and Space Museum, drawing the attention of hundreds of stunned khaki-clad tourists (some of whom began snapping off disposable-camera portraits of me).”

Fully inside, despite the orders of the security guards that the Museum was closed to the public, Howley made his way upstairs – to the location where a banner was unfurled protesting the Museum’s exhibit of unmanned drone weapons.

“I strained to glance behind me at the dozens of protesters I was sure were backing me up, and then I got hit again, this time with a cold realization: I was the only one who had made it through the doors. As two guards pointed at me and started running, I dodged a circle of gawking old housewives and bolted upstairs.”

He then found himself “stumbling around aircraft displays with just enough vision to keep tabs on my uniformed pursuers. “The museum is now closed!” screamed one of the guards as alarms sounded. “Everyone make your way to the exits immediately!” Using my jacket to cover my face — which I could feel swelling to Elephant Man proportions — I ducked through the confused tourists and raced out the exit. “Hey, you!” shouted a female guard reaching for my arm. “Get back here!” But I was already down the steps and out of sight.”

Howley refers to the Museum as “the scene of my crime.” In light of his detailed description of his activities today the fact that they clearly document the commission of the crime of trespassing on federal property, if not the intent to incite a riot there, these admissions should not be taken lightly or ignored. As a result of Howley’s activities a large number of people were subjected to pepper-spray attacks including journalists and tourists who had nothing to do with the protest. Given the negative light that the press is attempting to spin this incident with regard to the ongoing occupations, from Wall Street and D.C. and now spreading to Main Streets across the country, the presence and admitted activities of this self-proclaimed agent provacateur should be brought to the attention of federal law enforcement officials.

I enjoy seeing the establishmenteers and the 1% elites huff and puff, desperate to draw the attention from where OWS is putting it … they can’t stand seeing working families fight back against their war on the middle class

There is no sense with these loons who are out there ranting really, really nothing except the rich – the rich.

It’s all propaganda BS to try to grease the people into thinking we need to tax the rich, when what it is really all about is the Dems wanting the Bush tax cuts to expire.

They are set to expire on Dec. 31, 2011, and if they do EVERYBODY’S taxes will go up starting Jan. 1, 2013, which is why some may have heard Obama say the tax hike he wants won’t take affect until 2013 – but that’s all he is saying, as well as it will tax the rich. But he leaves out that the bottom bracket gets hit the most, and the middle gets affected too, as well as the loss of child credit deduction and more ‘Marriage Penalty’ to be added.

The Bush tax cuts, whether they are let to expire or not, will carry through 2012 as is, but if they expire it’s back to the taxes prior to the cuts.

This will effect the bottom bracket the most – the bottom bracket got the highest percentage of a cut. They went from 15% to 10%, the next several brackets up went up 2% each, and the top bracket went to 35%. Mind you, this is only federal tax – there’s also state, local surtaxes, property, sales, fees, gas tax, cigarette tax, luxury taxes, tax on alcohol, you name it, the Dems are taxing it. They need to pay for their welfare dependency for votes program, to include giving it to illegal aliens to line them up for votes, too.

The Bush tax cuts also doubled the child credit deduction – from $500 to $1,000 per child.
And the Bush tax cuts lessened the ‘Marriage Penalty’.

If the Bush tax cuts are left to expire they will hit the lowest bracket the most. They will have to give up an extra 5% to the feds, the added child credit deduction, and at a time the cost of gas, food, etc. have risen, while a lot of them haven’t seen a raise in a few years, and their health insurance has gone up because of ObamaCare.

This will break some of them down into welfare – right where the Dems want them for their welfare dependency for votes program. The one-eyed king adding more blind to their ranks – socialist pigs, by chance or design – ain’t no doubt about it.

The Bush tax cuts must not be let to expire. They must be extended, then made permanent when the Repubs take back control.

There is a stipulation in the last Bill that calls out for looking at letting them expire through the next Bill (Nov. I believe), and this is why the Dems have their union and left-wing loons out their barking at the rich.

It’s not about taxing the rich – they can have their accountants shift the shift, and they themselves can hide money – like Buffett – take less pay and put it into capital gains tax status for less. It’s about taxing the working stiff – the bottom bracket, and taking their added child credit deduction from them, along with the lessened ‘Marriage Penalty’.

The Democrats MUST be held off, then booted from office for their disgusting ways.

They are set to expire on Dec. 31, 2011, and if they do EVERYBODY’S taxes will go up starting Jan. 1, 2013. The Bush tax cuts, whether they are let to expire or not, will carry through 2012 as is, but if they expire it’s back to the taxes prior to the cuts.

Why don’t you focus your blame on Bush and the Republicans who passed a bill where his tax cuts expired?

Then the Dems took the majorities in both houses of Congress on Jan. 3, 2007 – 11 months later the nation went into a recession, because of the banking and housing mess Frank and Dodd created, then the stock market crash of October 2008 because Obama and the other Dems running for office were ranting their election class warfare cry about raising taxes, to include capital gains. Investors were listening and decided to get out while they still had their shirts on – DOMINO.

We were doing rather well until we were hit ion 9/11, then were coming out of that, then katrina, then were coming out of that, and doing OK.

Then the Dems took the majorities in both houses of Congress on Jan. 3, 2007 – 11 months later the nation went into a recession, because of the banking and housing mess Frank and Dodd created, then the stock market crash of October 2008 because Obama and the other Dems running for office were ranting their election class warfare cry about raising taxes, to include capital gains. Investors were listening and decided to get out while they still had their shirts on – DOMINO.

That’s exactly right – he is using smoke and mirrors with ranting about taxing the rich.

He had all the majorities, passed all his right over the heads of the Repubs and the American people, but failed to tax the rich. Interesting, to say the least.

It’s all about the Bush tax cuts, and they will hit the lowest bracket the most.

This goes to show how deceitful Obama really is. Yapping about taxing the rich, yet the taxes will hit the lowest bracket the most, as well as all the middle brackets, and with a loss of child credit deduction.

Get a grip – Bush gave us the cuts, and Obama is trying to take them away in a very deceitful manner.

The Bush tax cuts were to get us through 9/11 and Katrina – they were working – then we ended up with the Dems in control and their wrecking the economy even worse. The nation – the people – are in no position to let the Bush tax cuts expire right now – if not for Obama and the Dems with their ruination we wouldn’t have to extend them, but we must – the economy stinks because of what the Dems did to it.

And just think of the costs to the taxpayers having the added security and clean-up for the loon goons who Obama and company have out there ranting about the rich so they can sell cutting the Bush tax cuts.

The reason was because everyone knew that by the end of the decade, that the Bush tax cuts were going to be responsible for a massive revenue shortfall … and that if we projected those shortfalls out into the teens the deficit projections were going to be astronomical.

The sales pitch, of course, was noooo … all those economists were wrong, and tax cuts would create a world of magic ponies and supply-side stimulus fairies and all sorts of things that would stimulate investment and make the business cycle irrelevant. And thus, by the end of the decade, the tax cuts would pay for themselves, and everyone would acknowledge their brilliance, and vote them into permanence.

Instead, any rational actor would realize that the shortfall is real, and huge, and that expiring the Bush tax cuts is a necessary first step towards reducing the deficit.

Of course, they’d be focusing their ire on the guy who has been pressing to raise taxes on the wealthiest Americans, who signed a financial reform bill that his predecessor would have never signed, who appointed Supreme Court justices who voted for upholding McCain-Feingold restrictions on campaign spending by large corporations.

Speaking as a person who has not voted for a GOP or a Democrat ticket this century, I really don’t see what the hell the Democrats have done or even TRIED to do to reverse the trends leading to the destruction of the middle class.

The impoverishment began under Reagan who had a Democrat congress sending bills to his desk. Globalization, outsourcing, offshoring, and the destruction of the manufacturing base all started under Reagan and his Democrat Congress. We had 8 years of Bill Clinton who did nothing to reverse it. On the contrary, Bill Clinton, Democrat, double-downed on NAFTA, GATT and free trade agreements. Obama did nothing of any significance either his first two years to alter the trend or deal with the fundamental problems.

If the Democrats are any better than the Republicans for the middle class, it certainly is not by much.

We are the worlds largest manufacturer. Yes it is true that fewer people work in manufacturing but that’s mostly due to automation and productivity gains. Yes many corporations have moved offshore, but that’s not always due to cheap labor. Regulations and taxes drive business offshore as much as cheap labor. The really labor intensive manufacturing is going to always search for the cheapest labor. If not China, Vietnam or India.

We have a very high corporate tax rate. I think 2nd highest in the developed world. Reform the tax code, reign in regulations and most of all return to the classical gold standard. China would not be able to manipulate its currency. The dollar being the reserve currency of the world is a huge problem.

I’m fairly certain the econowonks among us have a good answer to your claim that being a reserve currency is bad and gold will save us. So I will leave that to them but you contradict yourself, if labor intensive manufacturing will always go to the cheapest labor then they aren’t going because of taxes and regulation now are they? And if they are low labor manufacturing then by lowering taxes and regulations we are paying more to these companies than we are getting back. (environmental degradation has economic costs too).

We’re not going to produce lots of shoes anymore. Very labor intensive. We are the worlds largest manufacturer of automobiles not nearly as labor intensive as it was 50 years ago. In specialty goods like high end audio which is very labor intensive we can still be a world leader. McIntosh Audio has been building some of the finest equipment in the world in upstate New York for 62 years.

6th, actually. OTOH, there are a lot of countries within a few percentage points of the US … whose governments provide free healthcare to the workers for those corporations, freeing them from the burden of providing that major expensive benefit.

You do realize that “effective” tax rates, which take into consideration the myriad loopholes and waivers and credits and what have you, is a far more honest way of looking at the corporate tax rate and its effects on whether big business decides to locate one place or another than the “nominal” tax rates, don’t you?

Balcone, some on the right pretend (?) to not understand the distinction between many things beside “effective tax rates” and “tax rates”; racism and noticing racism, protesting too big to fail and anti-capitalism, shared prosperity and socialism, climate change and snow, they think protesting inequality while owning a phone is hypocrisy, they don’t think loopholes for corporations is re-distribution but taxing the rich is, registration fraud is voting fraud…
A person could go on all day.

It is starting to dawn on people that we are headed for a very bleak and dystopian future. It really is time to weep for America when you see a sign like that. The writing is on the wall for sure. It won’t be long for this country.

It is bad, but we can recover no doubt. I blame most of our problems on the Bush administration and NeoCons. The idea since the fall of the Soviet Union the United States could do anything it wanted around the world and never suffer any consequences is laughable. The NeoCons are responsible for Obama who has been a disaster of the first magnitude.

Like the Tea Party got hammered with anecdotes about revolution, racism, and incitements to violence?
It’s the same deal. Only instead of Racism, they’re accused of anarchism, or straight-up Mao style communism.
They’re all goddamn idiots, sure. But at the end of the day, they’re not the inhuman monsters they’re made out to be.

Brainwashing? Or perhaps an attempt by organizers who know they’re going to be held responsible for the actions of the crowd to lay out groundrules and do what they can to make a very disparate group of protestors act responsibly.

Granted, this is going to be more difficulty given that we already know that some right wingers have joined protests and led the way in the “acting bad” category … and just like factory owners of the 1930′s had no problem hiring locals willing to go out and turn every union march into a brawl, I’ve little doubt that there are people being hired to go into these marches and incite or act reprehensibly.

Nonetheless, those on the outside should be delighted to have someone on a bullhorn – because it provides a nexus of responsibility should something go amiss. As pointed out earlier, those coming to the Occupy Wall Street rallies are coming for a wide range of reasons, and are being directed there by a wide range of sites. There doesn’t appear to be a massively funded FreedomWorks busing them in and providing directions, and there certainly isn’t direction coming from a Fox News media empire.

The biggest difference between the OWS rallies and the Tea Party rallies it seems is that those who pull strings in our country quickly felt very comfortable with the Tea Partiers … and are clearly getting increasingly scared by the Occupy Wall Streeters. The former represented no threat to the way business really gets done – it was just adding political leverage to the GOP. The latter could turn into a movement where in some places any corporate funded candidate could be at risk, and that realization is starting to sink in.

“This will break some of them down into welfare – right where the Dems want them for their welfare dependency for votes program. The one-eyed king adding more blind to their ranks – socialist pigs, by chance or design – ain’t no doubt about it.”

Attention Republicans, welfare reform happened two and half Presidential terms ago, under Clinton. You don’t get to use it against Democrats anymore. Period. Expire it.

Also Dragonfly, you can’t say the Bush tax cuts were set to expire because they were just there for 911 and Katrina and then say there’s a problem with them expiring, and Obama is wrong because of it.

As for feeling so sorry because the rich will have to pay 4% more, no, your right I don’t. It might not pay for everything in our budget, but it will pay for some of it. So why not pay for some of it

Anyone making over a million dollars a year (or more in the case of hedge fund managers) who actually feels sorry themselves, feels life is being unfair needs to rethink their life and their connection with reality. Money is not actually the means for keeping score in a game for rich egomaniacs.

The reason was because everyone knew that by the end of the decade, that the Bush tax cuts were going to be responsible for a massive revenue shortfall … ”

WRONG – YOU HAVE BEEN PROVEN WRONG SO MANY TIMES ON SO MANY ACCOUNTS, balconesfault. I AM SURPRISED YOU HAVE THE COURAGE TO CONTINUE WITH YOUR FOOLISHNESS. BUT HIDING BEHIND YOUR SCREEN WHILE FABRICATING SUBTERFUGE IS NOT COURAGEOUS. You’re weak. Weak. Your argument for Obama and the Dem’s failure is weak. Weak. And it is weak because it is false. Obama and the Dems in Congress are to blame for the rotten economy, and they WILL pay for it at the polls come Nov. 2012.

America was doing fine with the Bush tax cuts after 9/11 and Katrina – we were getting back on track with 4.6% unemployment, the deficit was heading the other way, then the Dems took control of both houses of Congress on Jan. 3, 2007 – 11 months later America was in a recession – Obama, the Dem’s rubberstamp, got in then super-sized the mess.

Now we have a Republican-controlled House of Representatives who have been putting a lid on the Democrat’s retarded spending, and will continue to do so until America boots the Dems OUT for what they did to America and the American people. My only hope is that the house has what it takes to extend the Bush tax cuts and not let the Democrats tax the American people any more in order to fund their welfare dependency for votes program, to include giving it to illegal aliens while they line them up for future votes.

To understand what’s going on here, you need to go back 10 years to the passage of the Bush tax cuts. In order to maximize the size of the cuts, Republicans had to minimize the influence of minority Democrats on the package. So they chose to run the bill through the reconciliation process.

But that posed some challenges. Budget reconciliation had never been used to increase the deficit. In fact, it specifically existed to decrease the deficit. That’s why one of its rules was that you couldn’t use it to increase the deficit outside the budget window. Republicans realized they could take that very literally: The budget window was 10 years. So if the tax cuts expired after 10 years, they wouldn’t increase the deficit outside the budget window. They’d also have the added benefit of appearing less costly in the Congressional Budget Office’s estimates, as the CBO duly scored them as expiring after 10 years, which kept the long-range budget picture from exploding.

LOL – I said your facts are wrong, then you produce a projection – no facts, and that is because there are no facts to show that the Dems have done any good – just the opposite – they took control and ruined the economy.

Case closed – Obama and the Dems are horrible for the economy – the sooner they are gone the better.

LOL – I said your facts are wrong, then you produce a projection – no facts

The projection is what the whole legislated expiration of the Bush Tax Cuts was based on.

I’m sorry this is so hard for you to understand … but it was all because of politics.

If the text above was too complex for you to wrap your slogan-addled brain around, let me break it down.

i. The GOP had a congressional majority, but not a big enough one to override a filibuster
ii. They wanted as big a tax cut as could possibly pass with a 51-vote majority
iii. rules prohibited them passing a tax cut that would project deficits past 2010 without being subject to filibuster
iv. all projections indicated that the Bush Tax Cuts, past 2010, would result in HUGE deficits
v. Legislation was proposed by the GOP to have tax cuts which expired in 2010

Even after two major economic disasters, 9/11 and Katrina, Bush had us at 4.6% unemployment.

Then the Democrats took over – U.S. News & World Report (not a conservative mag.) said that the Obama administration fudged the numbers and we are really at 19% unemployment.

I know it’s even higher, and I know, on top of that, there are millions of people on furloughs (less hours with less pay), as well as millions who haven’t seen a raise in a few years.

Also, while Obama, the Dems in Congress, and their staff made sure they all got nice raises and added perks, they failed to give seniors a Social Security COLA 2 years in a row, then Obama intimidated the seniors by saying they might not get their checks if he didn’t get his way, as well as the military maybe not getting their checks either. And notice how he never mentioned that the illegal aliens collecting welfare and foodstamps on the Dem’s line them up for future votes program, may have their checks affected. Nope – screw the seniors and the military, and spare the illegal aliens. Intimidate the seniors and the military about holding back their pay, but not the illegal aliens. It says it all about the Democrat party – they are disgusting.

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